First Winnie-the-Pooh became a murderer, now Bambi? Why children's classics are going dark

Sydney Morning Herald

3 days ago

The Hundred Acre Wood is a magical place. It's where Winnie-the-Pooh enjoys his honey, while Piglet tracks down 'Heffalumps', and Tigger bounces around on his springy tail.
But what has long been a joyful childhood memory has recently been transformed into a hellish nightmare.
In 2023, British director Rhys Frake-Waterfield released Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, a slasher adaptation of the A.A. Milne children's classic. In it, the cute and cuddly Pooh doesn't eat honey – instead, he drinks the blood of his victims. Piglet isn't a nervous, loyal friend, but a sledgehammer-wielding maniac. Oh, and Eeyore, the gloomy yet loveable donkey, has been eaten by his Hundred Acre Wood chums. Oh, bother.
It's not just Pooh and pals who are going dark. Peter Pan became a mutilated child-abductor in Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare, Mickey Mouse turned into a birthday party serial killer in Mickey's Mouse Trap, and, in late July, Bambi appeared as a mutated, ravenous monster in Bambi: The Reckoning.
These films are part of an emerging phenomenon in horror cinema, wherein beloved children's characters that have fallen out of copyright are turned into terrifying, twisted killers.
'I think it's perfectly normal to enjoy watching Winnie-the-Pooh decapitate someone and smash their head in,' says Frake-Waterfield. 'A lot of horror feels pretty repetitive, so we wanted to make something that made people go: 'What the f--- is that?', 'Someone actually made this?', 'What's wrong with that director?''
Despite their apparent perversion, the low-budget films are attracting decent crowds. Blood and Honey cost less than $155,000 to make, yet grossed over $8 million worldwide. Its sequel, though not as successful as the first, still made over $1.57 million globally against a microbudget. To put that into perspective, a major action release like Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which cost over $600 million to produce, just managed to turn a profit with around $920 million worldwide. Meanwhile, Blood and Honey earned its budget back nearly 52 times over.
Not everyone is on board, however. The films have generally been critically panned – Blood and Honey even swept five Razzies (the spoof Oscars for terrible films) in 2024 – and social media has been rife with thinkpieces arguing they're an abomination.
So, what is it about these films that rubs some people the wrong way, and how have they managed to gain momentum despite the backlash?
Why now?
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In January 2022, the original Winnie-the-Pooh stories by A.A. Milne entered the public domain. This meant that the characters depicted in the children's classic were suddenly up for grabs, freeing the way for directors like Frake-Waterfield to reimagine Pooh as a vengeful murderer – without getting slammed with a copyright infringement suit.
A.A. Milne's characters were followed by the earliest version of Bambi from Felix Salten's 1923 book, which lapsed copyright in 2022, and the original version of Mickey Mouse, otherwise known as Steamboat Willie, which entered the public domain two years later.
Notably, the Disney iterations of these characters are all still under copyright. That's why Mickey's Mouse Trap doesn't contain a surprise cameo from a killer Donald Duck – that character was a Disney addition to Mickey's clubhouse. It's also why Pooh isn't wearing a red crop top in Blood and Honey – Pooh didn't get his Disney red shirt until 1932.
Frake-Waterfield says he's always been interested in grabbing any IP he could 'get away with using'. 'If I get sued, I won't do it. That's my limit for now. That said, I might dabble a bit further at some point, just to see where the boundaries really are.'
Artistic brilliance?
If profit margins alone were considered, these films would be undisputed hits, particularly given how little is needed to create them (Frake-Waterfield says they typically spend around £300,000 on production).
Their relative financial success shouldn't be too surprising, Isaacs says. Horror is, after all, a subversive genre. 'Art should make us feel really uncomfortable sometimes,' he says.
'There's a gleefulness in a horror film saying it's willing to push the envelope to such a degree that it'll take your most treasured figure and turn it into some dark, perverse object. There's something artistically interesting and challenging in doing that.'
It's also politically interesting. Traditional Disney stories, for example, tend to serve conservative liberal narratives to children, exploring what some may consider problematic views on gender and power – take the 'good king' versus 'bad king' in The Lion King. These slasher adaptations, however, flip this on its head.
'Why shouldn't somebody be able to take the image of so-called innocence and reconstruct it as this dark figure? There's something intrinsically valuable in that kind of reconstruction, aside from the fact that it's also just bloody funny,' Isaacs says.
It's not like the children's stories being adapted are the epitome of joy, either. Dr Gregory Dolgopolov, artistic director of the Vision Splendid Outback Film Festival and film researcher at UNSW, says many of these tales were initially moral parables containing violence and horror to address real anxieties – elements later sanitised by the 20th-century commercial interests that monetised those stories.
'Confronting darkness in stories, even for children in appropriate forms, can serve an important psychological purpose by helping audiences process fear,' he says. 'Everyone knows Pooh and loves him, so it's easy to rework that material into a darker mode and exploit it as part of the audience's pleasure and to break taboos.'
Or abomination?
Since releasing Blood and Honey, Frake-Waterfield says he regularly receives hate online. The most recent message read: 'You f---ing psychopath, what drugs are you on?'
'The hate and backlash really is relentless. We get abuse daily, everything from verbal attacks and death threats to personal insults. Scott [Jeffrey], my co-producer, even has a stalker now,' Frake-Waterfield says. 'Luckily, I've got pretty thick skin, so it doesn't really affect me.'
This backlash is largely due to some people's emotional ties to the source material, Dolgopolov says, and broader concerns around the preservation of cherished cultural artefacts.
'These films challenge audiences' nostalgic love for safe symbols of our childhoods. For some, crossing that line simply feels wrong, no matter how inventive or legally permissible the result may be.'
Others, Dolgopolov adds, are convinced these films are merely made for shock value and commercial exploitation rather than meaningful artistic commentary.
Will these cuddly killers live on?
Frake-Waterfield has big plans for this sub-genre. In 2024, Jagged Edge Productions (which distributes most of these films) announced the 'Twisted Childhood Universe', a Marvel-esque crossover that will bring Pooh and all his wicked friends together on-screen.
What will the Twisted Childhood Universe look like?
Frake-Waterfield says he and Jagged Edge Productions have so far planned 11 phases.
Phase one is nearly complete. It includes two Blood and Honey movies, Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare, and Bambi: The Reckoning. Pinocchio: Unstrung, which will see the beloved puppet string people up, will be next, with an expected release date sometime this year.
'Phase one will culminate in Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble, where all the villains work together in an Avengers-style encounter. There will be a 'big bad' in this movie akin to someone like Thanos,' Frake-Waterfield says.
The next 10 phases will commence following this, though the director says the specific productions are being kept under tight wraps. Though phase 11 is as far as they have planned, Frake-Waterfield says there's probably ample room for more.
Though its audience will probably remain niche, Isaacs says the fandom shouldn't disappear, especially as its engagement is deepened through new adapted characters and crossover films. It points to a general boom in horror recently, which has seen franchises like Smile unexpectedly gain major global success.
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However, these adaptation films ultimately don't even need to rely on the box office, because much of their success is derived from buzz on social media and online forums.
It's important to remember that creatives have been adapting works of art for centuries, Isaacs says. So, why police this particular form of adaptation?
'The nature of subversive art is to go where other forms of traditional art won't go … Works [are] being coded, re-coded and reinterpreted constantly, that's what makes art exciting. I worry that as an artistic culture, we've been asked to police boundaries more, and that's often unhealthy. We should enable people to experience weirdness alongside the traditional, conventional, respectful stuff.'
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Dolgopolov agrees, noting that he wouldn't be surprised if Australian creators eventually jumped on the bandwagon.
'I expect someone will pitch a story about Mr Squiggle, Skippy, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie cooking up a beef Wellington and going on a bloody rampage, as they hunt down Ivan Milat and challenge Ginger Meggs and the Gumnut Babies to a final girl showdown,' he says.
While he doesn't see any issue with re-imaginings like Blood and Honey, he says it's best if they reinterpret the original material as meaningfully as possible.
'I hope they … love the material and not just use it as a convenient template. Perhaps they could bring out aspects from the original that may be hidden in plain sight – like the philosophical interventions of Eeyore.'